Most Expensive Domain Names

Every year Forbes comes out with these great lists for the “World Richest People“, “World’s Richest Billionaires” and even more specific one’s like “World’s Richest Supermodels“. They always get me with their top 500 richest issue, I like to keep track of the who’s moved up and down… and why. In addition to profiling the world’s richest people, Forbe’s also reports on some other great niches, like “Top 5 Most Expensive Domains“. Below is there list of top selling domains… don’t you wish you picked these up back in the 90′s!

1. Sex.com $12 million Originally registered by Gary Kremen, a Silicon Valley software salesman, in 1994. Sold in a private sale for a mixture of cash and stock to Boston-based Escom LLC in January 2005.

2. Porn.com $9.5 million MXN Limited bought its way into the porn industry in May. Brokered by Moniker.com, the deal stands as the largest all-cash URL transaction ever.

3. Business.com $7.5 million Sold to ECompanies Venture Group, headed by former Disney executive Jake Weinbaum, in 1999. Yet even the highly prized name couldn’t protect the business from the dot-com bust; the site is now a parking lot for other URLs.

4. Diamond.com $7.5 million Odimo sold this jewel of a site–along with its jewelry inventory–to Ice.com, an online retailer, in May 2006. Ice.com paid cash for the site and an extra $2 million for Odimo’s bling.

5. Beer.com $7 million Originally owned by Bill Fisher, a Web site developer who also owned Budweiser.com and Guinness.com. Sold to Belgium-based Interbrew, the world’s second-largest brewer by volume, the site now features racy content aimed at a male audience.

If you missed out on these domains, don’t feel bad. There are still plenty of domains being sold for thousands upon thousands of dollars. Just when I was at Affiliate Summit East, Moniker held a live domain auction and “AffiliateDirectory.com” went for an insane $30,000! It’s a good name, but I didn’t think it was that great. You’d be surprised what’s selling for what. Whether you are buying domains to flip and sell, or build them up as established web sites, there is still an ever increasing demand for quality names and you never know who just might want yours next!